Thoughts of a Torchwood Member
by fantasylover42
Summary: Take a little trip inside each of the Torchwood member's heads and see what they're thinking. Just something that seemed a good idea, hope you enjoy. Rated T to be safe, but nothing explicit.
1. Ianto

**Thoughts of a Torchwood Member**

**General Torchwood Fanfic**

**POV: Ianto Jones**

When you're in a relationship with Captain Jack Harkness, you never really know what you are to him.

Jack doesn't have an easy time showing his emotions, which I guess is maybe why it works out so well between us. I'm not really comfortable showing how I feel about him. But maybe that's because he's never really said how he feels about me.

But he shows it. He'll look into my eyes, when we're in bed together, when we're kissing, when we're talking, and I can see it. I can see there's so much more than he says out loud.

But I still wonder...

I see him looking at Gwen. I'm not blind, I know she's attractive. And I wonder if she hadn't been taken when Jack met her, if she'd be where I am now. Because I have a fairly good guess she would have tried if she didn't have a relationship.

When he ran away to the Doctor... I honestly thought he'd never be back. He left without a thought. From the few times he talked about the Doctor, I could tell he really admired him. Loved him, even. And I missed him more than I thought I would.... more than I thought I should. It hadn't even been a year since Lisa had died, and already, I was with a man. It didn't make sense. But that's the magic of Captain Jack Harkness.

Because nothing feels wrong when you're with Jack.

I was lost before I met him. I can't remember the last time a person made me feel that good. He's flirtatious, cheery, handsome, and indisputably in charge, but there's so much more to him, so much that people seldom see. He's loving, secretive, dark, insecure, and conflicted. Everyone sees him in the larger-than-life captain persona, but he has so many secrets, so many things that eat away at him day by day. I know they're there, even if he won't tell me about them.

He might be immortal, but he's just as human as any of the rest of us.

I can't believe where I am now. When I joined Torchwood for the first time, back in London, I never thought I would be out on the field, chasing aliens. I never thought I'd get in on that much of the action. I never thought my life could change so completely. I never thought I would fall in love with someone like Jack.

I never knew there was something so huge missing in my life until I found it.

I don't really like talking about myself – don't like talking that much at all, to be perfectly honest. But my childhood – was I wrong to alienate myself so completely from my family? Somehow I don't think so. Rhiannon was really the only one I ever got along with even slightly. Dad was always disappointed in me, made it quite clear I didn't live up to his expectations. And Mam... Mam. Well, she mostly just went along with Dad.

Meeting Lisa changed my life. It was the first time I really knew I was in love, and it was wonderful. Beyond anything I'd ever imagined. We were happy. I really thought I was going to marry her someday. But then came the battle at Canary Wharf. Then came the Cybermen. And I lost Lisa.

Dragging her out of the wreckage was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I was a mess, sobbing all over the place, trying to block out her screams, trying to ignore the fact that I could feel her blood on my hands, soaking my clothes. But she was alive. That was all that mattered. But I was lying to myself. I was too blind to see the truth: it wasn't Lisa. It was a Cyberman. Not even human. A monster.

But love sees only what it wants.

Caring for her. I didn't feel guilty that I was lying to the Torchwood team. I barely knew them, and they knew nothing of me. My only loyalty was to Lisa, to save her. For love.

I gave up everything to helping her. It was my life. It was what kept me going, what gave me a reason to get out of bed every morning, to drag myself into the shower and to work.

And then I lost her.

I hated Jack. It seems strange to me now that I ever could have hated him, but I hated him with every fiber of my being. Because before, every fiber of my being had gone into loving Lisa, and now that she was taken away from me, I needed something to fill it. I needed someone to blame. And the blame fell on Jack. At first it was so easy to hate him. He was so angry at me. So unbelievably pissed off. And then, something happened that made it so hard to hate him.

He forgave me.

And he helped me understand. Because after I saw that I couldn't blame him, I blamed myself. He helped me through so much. He helped me understand that Lisa's death wasn't my fault. He explained why he'd been so angry, and apologized, because although explainable, it still wasn't rational. He helped me believe I was a good person again. He showed me there was so much left to live for. And then another unfathomable thing happened.

I fell in love with him.

At first I was so conflicted, confused. I lived in a society that frowned upon same-sex relationships. What was I supposed to do? But Jack came through for me again. Without pressuring me at all, he helped me realize there was nothing wrong with any love. You love a person, not a gender. He opened my mind to so many things. He gave meaning to my life again.

But he left. He left Owen, he left Tosh, he left Gwen, he left Torchwood, and he left me. Just when I was thinking I might actually mean something to him, he tore all that away. Jack's impulsive, he does things without really thinking them through. And truly, I do love that. But at the time it hurt like hell, and I hated it.

When he came back, he seemed exactly the same. Which I think made me want to hate him even more. Which was stupid. I'd already fallen long before he left, and the time he was gone didn't change that. But I think the turning point was when I realized he wasn't the same. He'd been scarred beyond belief when he was gone. He was reluctant to tell the story, but what he told me was horrifying. And it explained so much about him.

Jack needs someone. He craves the company of other people, but hates getting too close. But overall, he needs someone who can listen, and who can understand, or at least sympathize. And I try my best.

I know that someday something will happen to me, whether it's the near future or the distant future, and that Jack will live on. But as long as I'm here, it's nice to know that, for the most part, he's mine. And for now, that will have to be enough.

* * *

**A/N: So, this idea randomly popped into my head yesterday. I wrote Ianto first, because i've been in his head a lot lately with the Janto fanfic. So i just started writing, and yes, i've decided to at least attempt to do this for the entire Torchwood team, which means four more: one for Jack, one for Owen, one for Tosh and one for Gwen. who'll i do next??? probably Jack. NO but i kind of want to save him for last.... i wish i would have saved Ianto a bit longer, they're my 2 favorite characters, i think... oh well, i'm rambling XD hope you enjoy!**


	2. Owen

**Thoughts of a Torchwood Member**

**General Torchwood Fanfic**

**POV: Owen Harper**

**WARNING: Spoilers from Fragments, Out of Time, Combat, and some other episodes. Swearing as well, please do not read if swearing or any possibly crude offends you, but when I'm writing for Owen, I can't seem to avoid using swear words. Sorry.**

I think that the people who understand tragedy best are doctors.

We come to work every day, just to see people die, to tell someone that their husband, father, mother, wife, child, is never coming home again. You stand there, helpless, because there's nothing that you can say or do that will make this right. You know there's a chance that they'll blame you for the death of the person they've lost. And then you have to move on and try to help other people.

And you can never save enough people.

I wasn't always as much of a jerk. Sure, I could be a prat sometimes, but it wasn't always as horrible. I had friends, I had a good job in a respectable hospital, and I was in love with a beautiful woman that I was engaged to. But then it all went wrong. Starting with the person I cared about more than anyone in the world.

Katie.

She was everything wonderful. She was funny, sweet, and beautiful. She understood me, and we got along so well. After we met, we slipped into a good friendship, which escalated to a casual relationship, before finally falling in love. It's true that love changes people. I was always at my best when I was with her.

But then came the memory loss.

It started off small; not knowing where her keys were, forgetting where she put a book, misplacing her cell phone. But it just got worse, and she forgot more and more. I was frantic. I kept my cool around her, not wanting to worry her, always staying calm when she couldn't remember, knowing that it scared her. I brought her in for tests countless times, refusing to listen when they told me that it was just early-onset Alzheimer's. I needed explanations. Finally, the tests actually yielded useful information: the signs of a tumor on Katie's brain. I tried to tell her it would be okay, but she looked at me, and I knew it before the words came out of her mouth. I knew that this time, in this spell, she couldn't remember me.

It broke my heart.

We got her in for surgery. It was agony just sitting in the waiting room, not doing anything useful. Pacing back and forth for what seemed like days. And then, suddenly, there was a noise and the doors moved inward slightly. As I stood there, scared shitless and confused beyond belief, a man behind me. "I'm sorry."

I took in his appearance quickly. Brown hair, blue eyes, a strikingly handsome face, and over a button-up blue shirt and black pants, he wore a navy blue greatcoat, which I'd never seen anyone wear, seeing as they'd gone out of fashion long before I was ever around. But I didn't care about that. "Who the hell are you?"

He placed his hand on my shoulder, ignoring my question. "I tried to tell them, you should prepare for the worst." He moved toward the door, and I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. Who did he think he was?

"No, you can't go in there-" I said hurriedly. He stopped and looked me straight in the eyes, the grimmest expression I'd ever seen on his face, before pushing past me and into the theater. Not knowing what else to do, I followed as he jogged into the room. And I couldn't believe what I saw.

"Oh my- oh my god."All of the surgeons were sprawled on the floor, which was shock enough. I KNEW these people. They were my colleagues, my friends! And although they were obviously unconscious, there was a part of my brain that knew that without a doubt, they were dead. But as I saw my fiancée lying on the table, my only thought was her.

"Katie-" As I walked forward, I saw a tentacle flex and stretch out of her open skull. I remembered the man, who in the small amount of time all this had taken, I'd forgotten was even there. He was here, so he might know something. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry. I tried to stop them." I was sick of him evading my questions. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now. He just stood there. Stiff, uncaring, and so fucking mysterious.

"She's dead." When he said it, somehow it made it all real. Like before it had all been a dream, but I'd woken up and found that while I was sleepwalking, it had all happened. "That thing in her head is an alien life form." Now he was just talking because I couldn't. "It incubates in the brain, disrupting the shape and functions." He'd moved while he was talking, and now he was right beside me. "When it's attacked or threatened, it emits a toxic gas that's fatal to humans." He waved his hand in the air. "Clears pretty quickly."

I'd long since lost it. I was choking on my sobs and my disbelief. "She can't be dead. She can't be dead. Call in the police."

"I'll tell them that Torchwood's already here, and dealing with it." How could he just stand there and say all this, emotionless, as if we weren't surrounded by dead bodies? As if innocent people hadn't just lost their lives? "Save them a call out. I need to take her brain back with me."

"Don't touch her, don't touch her, don't touch her!" The next thing I knew, he'd grabbed me and there was cloth over my mouth. I couldn't breathe, and I slipped into darkness...

I woke up in a hospital bed. I was groggy, confused, and frustrated. When the nurse came in I asked where Katie was, but she just cheerfully suggested I get back into bed. I'd always hated how falsely cheery the nurses were. I wanted to know what was going on. I struggled, yelled, and cried, ignoring their pleas to calm down until I was too tired to do anything else. Someone came in to tell me about Katie – I don't even remember who – and they left me to sob alone in my bed.

I went to talk to someone about the man I'd seen. I was assured that no such person had been on the premises and that all the footage had been checked. That, along with the fact that I'd mentioned the alien poison, convinced everyone that I was crazy. I was pretty damn convinced myself when I checked the tapes myself and there was no sign of him. I was put off of work for three months for "prescribed rest", which I knew included getting over my insanity.

I went to Katie's tombstone as often as I could bear to drag myself out of the house. And it was on one of those days, crouching next to her grave and trying to hold myself together, that I saw him again.

At the time, I didn't know it was a day that would change my life. I was just really pissed off.

He was standing there, another reminder of the days I wished I could forget, and undeniable proof that I wasn't crazy. But I wasn't thinking of any of that, because the rage roaring in my ears as I walked towards him was blocking out all thought. Before I knew it, I was running over to him, yelling at the top of my lungs as he just stood there and waited. "YOU!"

I punched him without bothering to stop running, using my momentum to propel myself down to the ground on top of him as I continued to beat him. He didn't even struggle. "You could have saved her!"I punched him in the face again. "You could have saved her!" I couldn't stop myself. "You could have saved her!" My hands closed around his neck, driven on by my hate and anger. He grabbed my hands, half trying to pry them off of his neck by instinct, half just letting me vent. I let go as grief replaced hatred and rage and collapsed on him, crying.

"I really couldn't," he panted, and even though he was out of breath from my choking him, I could hear the sincere remorse in his voice. His hands clasped my head in a comforting gesture and he held me against his chest and let me cry.

As soon as I was all cried out, I rolled off of his chest and collapsed on the ground, curled up in a ball, feeling utterly drained and vulnerable. He climbed to his feet before helping me to mine. We wandered around the graveyard as he explained some things, gave me the answers I wanted, such as his name: Captain Jack Harkness. He assured me that he was no figment of my imagination, and told me that just because Katie was gone, my world wasn't gone. I couldn't really believe him. I no longer hated him or blamed him, but now I was lost, because all of the energy that had been taken up by how furiously I had hated him was replaced by... nothing. I was just empty.

He told me he needed a medic. He showed me what he'd said he was building: Torchwood. Rebuilding, really. I still thought that the entire idea of aliens was bollocks, but before I could think about that too much, he asked a question.

"Owen, why did you become a doctor?"

I didn't need to hesitate, I knew why. "I thought if I could save one life, mine would be worthwhile. But you save one, and there's another, and another, imploring at you, demanding to be saved. And even if you succeed, you can never save enough."

He put his hands on my shoulders. "Maybe here you can."

I still wasn't sure of that, but I decided it was worth it to try. I said I'd start work in a week, I needed to wrap up things at home first. Jack agreed readily, saying that he'd introduce me to the other recruits on my first day, and that if I needed more time I only needed to let him know. The first thing I did when I got back home was I went to the hospital and informed them of my resignation. I was assured that I would be missed, but I didn't know if I would miss the hospital. Everything that had made it worthwhile was gone, now. Most of my friends had died in the surgery, Katie had died, and anyone that was left thought I was insane.

Soon I'd secured a flat in Cardiff, at least for temporary living space. I packed up all my things, and anything that had belonged to Katie that I'd missed when first sorting through all of her things I packed up and sent to her family. Finally I'd erased all traces of myself at my old home ready to start a new life, as much from scratch as I could.

But I was changed. I wasn't the happy person that I'd been since falling in love with Katie. I'd transformed into a darker version of who I'd been before I'd met Katie. Since Katie had died, I'd been trying to drown my sadness in one of the things that I had always enjoyed – sex. Mostly just cruising out in bars and picking up women, little one night stands. It helped me ignore the immediate pain. But I didn't dare even think about anything that was more than casual. It would have felt as though I was betraying Katie.

I met the remainder of the team when I came to work. Toshiko Sato and Suzie Costello. Jack told me that he'd leave it up to me to decide if I wanted to tell them about my past, and he subtly suggested that they hadn't had the best of pasts either. I decided to let it be for now, unless they asked right out.

Tosh had a much more shy personality and reminded me of some of the bookworms back from high school. She was also incredibly nice, with a soft, sincere smile and a knack for staying in the comfort zone. Suzie, on the other hand, was outspoken, confident, and sure of herself, which I'd always found attractive. She and I became, for lack of a better term, fuck buddies pretty quickly.

I quickly lost my disbelief of aliens after dealing with them every day. Every time a new species came up – which was pretty frequently at first – Jack would give me a quick crash course on it, anything I needed to know for tests or autopsies. He also showed me a large data base, which I got through pretty quickly. One thing medical school had taught me was how to absorb a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Like everything in life, things fluctuated. Suzie and I stopped seeing each other – again, for lack of a better term – when she became obsessed with some alien technology that came through the rift – the resurrection gauntlet. We gained a new member under some interesting and questionable circumstances, Ianto Jones, who became our official coffee and clean-up boy. And Suzie's obsession escalated as she became eager to try out the glove on murder victims. There were a series of opportune murders, and it was while testing the glove on the third victim that we picked up a stalker and who would become another member, Gwen Cooper.

It shocked and disgusted us all when Jack told us the full story of what had happened with Suzie. I couldn't believe that she would sink so low as to murder people so that she could do research on the glove. But I was just as surprised when Jack announced that Gwen was going to be a new Torchwood member. I was apprehensive and argued with Jack about it until he pointed out that I'd been hired in much the same way: I was persistent and wouldn't stop searching until I found him. Grumbling, I agreed. But I'd become quite the cynic since Katie's death.

Gwen's first day started earlier than we expected.

After all of the sex alien stuff was over – one of the more interesting days at work, I'll admit – and things had settled down a bit, I found it less possible every day to deny that I found Gwen attractive. I wanted to have sex with her. She was new, it didn't take much to push her over the edge and into bed with me. But pretty soon, she felt guilty, and I was back to picking up one night stands in pubs and clubs.

Until December.

It didn't really seem like a different day. Just another day of the rift screwing with people's lives. How was I supposed to know that it would change my life?

Diane Holmes. She was beautiful. I don't know how I managed to be her designated integrator, but I loved that I was. She was smart, sexy, and a no-nonsense sort of girl, which I found incredibly attractive. She changed my views of what I'd thought of as a sexually repressed time period. I figured it was a pretty good deal, and set up a fuck buddy thing. I told myself it was no biggy. I'd done this sort of thing before. But something went wrong, something that I didn't plan, something that I never, ever would have believed would happen.

I fell in love.

Then Diane left. I hadn't thought my heart could break again, but it did. And now I was convinced that there was no longer a reason to live. I got steadily wasted nearly every night, and everything just built up. I just didn't see a point to it anymore.

I wouldn't have considered myself suicidal, but standing in front of the angry, tortured weevil in a cage, I realized that I just wanted it to be over. Anything would be easier than the pain. I wasn't afraid of death. How can you fear death if you have nothing in life to lose?

But despite everything, I stayed alive. I stayed alive through Ianto trying to keep me from opening the rift, I stayed alive through what should have been the end of the world, I stayed alive through Jack leaving us, blind and alone like baby mice.

But he came back, eventually. And everything moved again, Torchwood style. And I say I stayed alive. But I died, eventually.

And I stayed dead.

But I didn't, either.

Life when you're dead, in a word, sucks. I lost everything that was important to me for yet another time. But you can't commit suicide when you're already dead.

But you find points of light in everything, little reasons to keep going, day after day, even though you just feel like giving up.

Doctors understand tragedy better than anyone. But I think they also understand hope better than anyone. The hope is what keeps us coming, day after day, to do our jobs.

I'm Doctor Owen Harper, and I won't give up on hope.

* * *

**A/N: before anything else, I have a question: should I redo Ianto's? I have no idea how Owen's got so long! It just flowed right out, I couldn't stop! So should I add to/redo Ianto's? Please leave your thoughts. I kind of feel like I should…**

**Anyway, wow. I enjoyed getting into Owen's head more than I thought I would. There's so much there that is fun to decipher and try to get around. I certainly don't think this chapter is perfect by any stretch of the definition, but I definitely think it's better than I thought it would be.**

**If you have a specific request for who you want me to take over the brain of next, tell me! Because I don't know who to do next (I'll probably do Jack last because he'll be such fun ^.^) Also, at any time, if you want an elaboration on any character, tell me, because I'd be more than willing to!**

**p.s. should I do Suzie, or do we just not know enough about her? Hmmm…**


	3. Tosh

**Thoughts of a Torchwood Member**

**General Torchwood Fanfiction**

**POV: Toshiko Sato**

**Warnings: Spoilers from seasons 1 and 2. If you don't like spoilers, don't read. If you don't like spoilers and you still read, don't blame me, I put a warning. Thank you :)**

What do you do when everything you care about has been taken away from you?

That's a question I asked myself a lot when I was in UNIT prison for treason. The easy answer is suicide, but I didn't have that option. So I just ceased to live – not ceased to exist, just stopped doing anything that could possibly make it seem like I was honestly living my life.

Another question I asked myself was if I regretted what I did. The honest answer was no. Because if I hadn't done what I did, then I would have to live with the guilt of not trying to help my mother. It was all in what you were willing to give up for what you loved. I would have given everything to help my mother, even if it landed me in jail – or dead.

I couldn't tell one day from another. Nothing ever changed. I laid in my cold, dark, dirty cell, cameras on me when I was in my cell and a pair of eyes following me when I was out. I tried, at the beginning, to keep track of the days, but I lost track. There was nothing to differentiate them. The routine never changed – I'm not even sure that the food changed from day to day.

So that was how I lived my life until the day came that my life would be changed forever.

Because of my lack of a calendar or timekeeping device, I have no idea when it was that the loudspeaker announced that I had a visitor. I didn't care. I was sure it couldn't be anyone of importance – anyone of use. How wrong I was.

I didn't have enough emotion left in me to be surprised when the door swung open to reveal a tall man in a long coat that hadn't been in any sort of fashion for decades. His face was serious, business-like, but it didn't take long to see that his personality wasn't limited to that. He introduced himself as Captain Jack Harkness., and talked to me about the sonic modulator I'd made. I couldn't believe my ears when he told me that the instructions hadn't been correct and that I'd fixed it by myself. I'd always been good with technology, but I never would have believed I'd be able to do something like that.

He offered me a job with him. I would find out soon that he hadn't explained the job quite as clearly as I would have liked, but I was so desperate to get out of prison that I leaped at the chance. I was relieved that my mother was fine, even though I couldn't contact her.

Jack took me to a flat. He told me that I didn't have to live there permanently, but it would at least get me a start. He'd even gotten me a car and some clothes. When I protested, he simply smiled and said, "I need my team to be prepared. You don't need to pay it back to me or even thank me, but if you do, you'll have no trouble." Then he took me to Torchwood.

It was the most insane thing I've ever seen. It was like a science fiction movie happening before my eyes. And basically any technology nut's dream work place. He explained things to me as he gave me the tour, and then hesitantly brought me down to the cells, telling me there was one more thing that I needed to see.

I was face to face – with only a thin layer of glass between us – with a creature like nothing I'd ever seen before. Jack told me it was called a weevil, and then said that it was an alien. "That's what we do, here at Torchwood. We protect the world from alien threats."

It was insane. A part of me thought I was dreaming. But there was another part of me, the part that I think everyone has deep inside them, the part that never grows up or loses the naivety of a child, that believed what I was seeing and what Jack was telling me. He offered me the chance to refuse the job, but I declined. I owed him, and besides, who else was going to hire me if they found out I'd been imprisoned for treason? I felt like it was my only option, but truth be told, I didn't really feel that I was resigning myself to anything. If anything, I felt more excited about this job than I'd ever felt about another job in my life.

There was only one other member at the time. Suzie Costello. She was brilliant, she truly was. She was great at – well, everything, which would have made her the best candidate for second-in-command even if she hadn't been the only candidate available. She was very sure of herself, and in so many ways, she was what I wasn't and what I wished I could be.

I fell into my work at Torchwood fairly quickly. It surprised me what my trip to jail had opened my eyes too. I now only felt the slightest hesitation when I hacked into secure files, and did any number of other illegal things. I guess working with aliens kind of puts you in the mindset that there are bigger things, more important things than laws. Not that I ever would condone simply hacking into files for fun. I didn't practice illegal acts outside of anything for work.

The next addition to the team was Dr. Owen Harper. He acted a bit like an ass, but I didn't believe that was all there was to him. He was also rather attractive. It didn't take long for me to fall for him. I had a bit of a history with my love life, always pining for the ones I couldn't have. I didn't expect this to be any differently, but I still couldn't help but want him. I was willing to step in for him at times when he was hungover – I had little doubt that most times he's also either had a one-night stand or been trying for a one-night stand.

And yet, I didn't care. I never felt like it would come to anything – I was completely convinced he was far out of my league and that I wasn't his type at all, but I still hoped. He was a bit of a twat sometimes, but we developed a nice friendship regardless. With me always wanting more, but him maybe not even wanting that much.

Time passed. What would have been entirely abnormal before became normal. Our perspectives skewed. We got two more members, Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper. When Ianto joined, nothing changed much. He kept to himself, and the shadows. Sometimes I didn't even notice he was there. But Gwen's recruitment was much more monumental, and resulted in the loss of another member: the brilliant Suzie Costello.

I was horrified by Suzie's betrayal, and what she'd done. I could only imagine the trauma she had caused Gwen. I couldn't believe the extent she had gone to for the sake of research. Actually murdering people, just so she could try out the glove. But I had even more to think about. I had to think about how Gwen had questioned my job, and how she had said we'd forgotten what it meant to be human.

That bothered me.

Was that true?

Had I forgotten what it meant to be human?

I think I had, a little bit. Being in Torchwood, seeing things beyond the imagination, it makes you forget what the real world's like. You can see the bigger issues, so you forget about the smaller issues, which does remove a bit of your humanity, I suppose. It bothered me, I never thought I would become inhuman.

But pretty soon, life returned to normal. Torchwood normal, that is, with aliens all over Cardiff and running around the city breaking about 20 laws a day. This was what normal was, now. Once you join Torchwood, your definition of normal instantly changes.

Gwen settled into the job pretty easily. We adapted to the loss of Suzie and the shift that we all had to make to make sure that everything she'd done was covered. Gwen had a pretty terrible first day, but we cut her some slack. We all knew how hard it was to just start out in this job. We knew that deaths happened. Jack forgave her very easily.

The team was shaken soon again with another betrayal, this time from Ianto.

The quiet young man who always hid in the shadows was hiding something else there with him.

His girlfriend.

Which would have been fine if she hadn't been a partially converted cyberman.

Ianto was a broken man after the ordeal. He'd lost everything worth living for. I could read his emotions well because it hadn't been that long since I'd been in that position myself.

Jack was furious with him. I couldn't completely understand why he was so angry. Gwen had indirectly killed several people on her first day, after all, and he'd barely told her off. I had a feeling Jack and Ianto had been close in some way, maybe had some sort of relationship before, and that left Jack feeling more betrayed than the rest of us.

But I think a part of it was that he took the events of the battle at Canary Wharf very personally, and it still stung.

Jack doesn't like reliving the past.

Things calmed down again. Ianto returned to work eventually, after Jack had calmed down. Jack made more of an effort to include him in the team after that, and it turned out to be that decision which traumatized him even further.

After our trip to the countryside, Ianto was again put on leave from Torchwood. But I connected with him a lot more then. He'd tried to save my life, even though it meant further injury for him. I explained that all to Jack when he seemed surprised at how little I was injured. After I explained, he was very worried about Ianto. Ianto pitched a fit when Jack told him that he was on leave again, but I just hugged him and told him that Jack was worried, and that he should go home, he wasn't in any physical or psychological state to be at work. Ianto just smiled, but he listened.

I hadn't had any luck with love thus far. I wasn't particularly lucky in that department, never had been. But I never thought that I would be so desperate that I would fall into bed with the first being who came along and showed an interest.

I never thought that I would ever be in bed with a woman.

Mary was... persuasive. And it felt so good to be wanted. Just for those few little moments, I was happy. But she brought up Owen. She reminded me of why I was so desperate. I didn't want to be reminded.

When I found out she was an alien, I honestly didn't know which shocked me more: that I was sleeping with a woman or an alien. I still don't know. Both ideas were about as foreign to me.

She used me. She used me to get into the Hub. She used me, manipulated me. She knew exactly how the necklace would work, and she knew that it would drive me over the edge. She knew everything.

She knew that I would hear that Owen and Gwen were having an affair. She knew how much that would hurt me.

I'll give her points for being clever.

And yet in a way, I was devastated when Jack sent her to the center of the sun, when he killed her. It almost felt like my chance at love was gone. It felt like I would never get another chance, even though I knew now that Mary had used me. She knew I was the most vulnerable, and she took advantage of that. Jack helped me understand, he eased me through what I needed to do, and without telling me anything, he helped me see that I needed to crush the amulet.

I was still shaken from that ordeal when Suzie Costello was brought back to life.

I couldn't look at her. She taunted me about it. It still rankled that she'd tainted the name of Torchwood by murdering innocent people. But she was still smart. She made us all believe that she could be trusted again, and she played on Gwen's extraordinary empathy. She'd planned it all in advance, locking us in the Hub, stealing Gwen's life. How could she have known all that? How did she manage to keep the knowledge from us?

It was a joint effort to kill her for the final time. Gwen was traumatized from the near-death experience. Thinking about it, I think traumatized is practically a Torchwood member's normal state of being.

I didn't spend much time with any of the people cast out of their time by the rift around Christmas. I didn't need to. Jack, Gwen, and Owen were more than willing to take on the task and make them feel welcome. They each felt a connection to someone. Watching Gwen and hearing her talk about Emma made me realize that she really would make a good mother. Jack felt drawn to John, but I couldn't tell why. And Owen obviously saw something in Diane, because he hardly was around all the while she was.

I didn't realize that he loved her until he was willing to get in a cage and get mauled by a weevil when he lost her.

It hurt to know that he could love someone that much, but he still didn't love me. He didn't even see me.

I probably never would have brought it up, but I never got the chance. Jack and I got stuck in the 1940s soon.

It shocked me when Jack revealed some of his past. I didn't leave him much choice – I wasn't going to let it go when I found out he'd even been lying to us about his name, when we met the real Captain Jack Harkness. I could see the pain in Jack's eyes – our Jack, the Jack of Torchwood. He knew what was going to happen, and he wished he could change it. He wished it so desperately.

Jack always wanted to save the world.

But seeing the two dancing was more romantic than anything in any movie. Two men, in a time when same-sex relationships weren't accepted at all, dancing with love and care obvious in their eyes.

I knew that Jack wanted to give him the night of his life, the happiest moments, everything he could possibly give so that he would have a good night before he died.

When the rift flew open, I knew we might not have much time. I knew we needed to get out as soon as possible. I ran for it, calling for Jack. I stood in the light and shouted for him. He turned to me, then ran back and kissed the real Captain Jack Harkness.

It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.

That night, Jack and I toasted the man whose name he'd taken, and the hero Jack didn't believe he ever could be.

But I did.

But the next day the world was ending.

Times were colliding, and it was all our fault. I'd never felt so hopeless in all my life. But when I saw my mother standing in the hallway in the hospital, I was deaf to reason.

We had to open the rift.

I hadn't thought that the world could go any worse than it had been before we opened the rift. But now I knew the true meaning of the words End of Days.

Jack died. Even after coming back that first time, even after he'd achieved the impossible, he was dead. There had been no sign of life for days. We all took it hard. I'm not sure who took it the hardest. But the two that showed it the most were Gwen and Ianto. Gwen showed all of her emotions – she was passionate, everything was obvious with her. But Ianto was trying so hard not to show how much he cared. Almost like he was ashamed.

But he was, a little.

And then Jack came back to life. I saw him, holding hands with Gwen, walking into the main part of the Hub. I ran and hugged him, so relieved, and I wasn't even able to believe he was there. He kissed Ianto. I wasn't sure which kiss was more full of care – Jack with the real Captain Jack, or Jack with Ianto. But neither of them ever would admit how much they both cared.

Jack forgave Owen.

I thought everything was finally falling back into place. Ianto, Owen, and I went out for a refreshment run, and I felt like nothing could break up the team again. But when we got back, Jack was gone.

It was hard for a while, it truly was. But we all came to an understanding, and for months, we worked together, a team, perfectly together, like a well-oiled machine.

And then Jack came back.

He just showed up, gun still in his hand from shooting the blowfish through the head. He was all jokes and laughs. He was Jack. But noone was in the mood for it.

We were angry.

We didn't want him to leave and then just show up with no explanations. He didn't tell us much. He never did. He hated talking about his past.

From what we'd seen, I wondered how much past he had.

But we brought him back into the team fairly quickly. We needed to. It was HIS psychotic ex we were dealing with. He knew more about Captain John Hart than anyone else, he could help us. By the end, he'd proved himself to us again.

But he'd also proved he hadn't really changed. He wasn't going to tell us his secrets.

Torchwood returned to normal. We worked through alien threats and everything else that came along. And then it was time to wake up Tommy.

Ever since I'd been there, I'd sort of had a thing for him, even though I didn't like to admit it. It made me seem more screwed up than I wanted to admit. He was younger than me in years, yet he'd EXISTED many more years than I. He was a boy we kept in a freezer. But he was so kind, and he was a looker.

And it was now that we needed to send him back to his own time.

It was now that we needed to send him to his death.

When I went and talked to him, it was like my heart was breaking. But I needed to do this, for Torchwood. For Tommy. For us.

Owen had told me he didn't want me to get hurt. He talked to me a lot during those days. It was the most care he'd ever shown for me. It was enough to let myself hope, but I didn't want to.

I'd just been shown another example of what can happen when you give someone your heart.

When they're gone, they take a piece of it with them.

I wasn't sure how many pieces I had left.

I tried asking Owen out on a date, once, but that was a disaster. He completely misunderstood me, and instead of correcting him, I just decided to leave it how it was.

There was more drama with Rhys and Gwen. He found out about us, what we did. She refused to retcon him. Jack got angry, Gwen got angry, and the rest of us watched on with mixed emotions.

It didn't have much to do with me.

Martha came. A doctor from UNIT, and a friend of Jack's. It made me realize that Jack wasn't the only one who was cryptic about his past. Martha wasn't letting anything known either.

Owen had been flirting with Martha the entire time. I kept my jealously curbed while talking to him about her, and the subject of the "pool tournament" came up. I bitterly corrected him, telling him it was supposed to be a date, but to my surprise, he accepted.

But that night he died.

I was beyond devastated. But I knew I had to keep it together for the team. Every time we had a loss it hurt everyone.

Jack brought him back. But permanently. We brought around another end of the world. Funny how many times we save the world while we were ending it in the first place.

And I still loved Owen. I couldn't understand why I did, but I did. I couldn't explain it to anyone. But I would love him until the day I died.

You always need a reason to keep on living. I hadn't had one. Torchwood gave me a life again. I was doing things I never would have dreamed of before.

Torchwood is my reason for living. It may be dangerous, but most of the time, there's nowhere that I'd rather be.

* * *

**A/N: Oh my gosh. I just made myself finish this XP**

**Tosh was really hard to write. The hardest part was starting, and that's always true, but the entire thing was difficult, and I think I know why.**

**All the others kind of keep themselves hidden, there are secrets they don't tell, things they don't say out loud. But Tosh. Darling Tosh, she wears her heart on her sleeve, doesn't she?**

**I think this entire thing was kind of random, I don't know how you guys will like it, but I hope it turned out okay.**

**And tell me if there are typos or anything, I haven't done a bit of proof reading on this :P**


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